Storms

We woke to the sound of thunder at dawn, real thunder, shaking-the-house thunder, followed by a flash of lightning that lit the room. My children slept through it, but I couldn't fall back asleep. I'm not afraid of thunderstorms -- I love them, actually, and it's one thing I miss, living here in Seattle. We have plenty of rain, but our thunderstorms are weak. I peered out the window and watched the rain lash the trees and crawled back into bed, where I did not sleep. I felt unsettled. Sometimes storms have that effect.

Or maybe it's just unsettling to wake to the rain when the rest of the country is trapped in an unrelenting heat wave. Maybe it's that I didn't know whether to feel grateful or glum.

We had a quiet day: swimming lessons, lunch, a little too much Dora the Explorer in lieu of backyard play. We were at the zoo on Wednesday, a new splash park the day before that. Yesterday, Suzannah and I had a picnic and mid-afternoon walk at a quiet, hidden place near our home. Mentally I tally up all the things we've done, legit summer things, to alleviate the Mommy Guilt over hitting "play" on the Dora DVD one more time while I unload the dishwasher or refresh CNN one more time.

I did that a lot today. I can't stop reading about the massacre in Colorado. I can't stop wanting to pick fights with people on the internet who were so immediately ready to jump in with criticism of the parents who dared take a baby to a midnight showing of a movie, because yes, now most certainly is the time to break out the judgements on people's parenting. That's what's wrong with this country, and not the fact that we can absolutely expect this kind of violence to continue; we certainly do love our guns.

My husband brought me flowers today, as a surprise. I have a vase of crimson gladiolus springing from the center of my dining room table, which, this evening, could not be more perfect. All day, the skies hung heavy with clouds. The air felt warm to me, humid, almost tangible -- like I could have felt it clinging to my fingers if I'd waved them around a bit. The flowers stand out, the way colors do when the sky is gray.

There's a metaphor in there somewhere, but tonight I am too tired to find it.

I've hardly heard adult voices all week, and while I love, really deeply love the summers because of the ways time slows, because of the ways in which we can break out of our routines, because of the sweet, sweet time I get to have with my children, it's also too easy to focus so much on them that I forget to leave a little room for myself. And the moment when I realize that -- well, it's lonely. And this week, that realization came in the middle of a project that keeps Matt up working until the wee hours, which means I don't get to unload all of my words on him at the end of the day, either. (I tried once.) Literally the only adults with whom I've had anything resembling conversations in the last three days are the barista at Starbucks, the guy who made my sandwich at Jimmy Johns, and the very nice woman who gave my young son his second-ever haircut tonight. (Which, by the way, is so cute. Rather, he was so cute, grinning and giggling at her because it "tickled." I kind of thought he'd freak out and refuse to sit in the chair the way he freaks out and refuses to stand on the scale at the doctor's office. I thought I'd have to bribe him with a sucker the way I did with his first haircut, but the place that gives out suckers while kids get to have their hair cut while sitting in a chair that looks like an airplane is gone, and we had to settle for Mastercuts. It was fine. I mean, I may have bought him a brownie pop as bribery beforehand, but still, he did really well.)

Anyway.

Tonight, the gladiolus. Tonight, a dance party with our two goofy children in the family room, and a totally haphazard but cozy dinner of leftovers. Tonight, a couple of gin-and-tonics, a couple of episodes of The West Wing because we want to hang out together but don't have the attention span for an actual movie.

It's been a strange day. I've felt -- oh, not exactly melancholic, but quiet. Every time I refresh the CNN page, or reread Jill Lepore's article in The New Yorker I feel a lot of other things that don't fit in this box. Every time I tip-toe into my children's rooms after they fall asleep I feel even more. And sometimes I'm just not quite sure what to do with it all.